Short Run Magazine Firm Continues Folding Alliance

The Magazine Printing Company in Enfield has installed its eighth Shoei B2 folder.

The Magazine Printing Company in Enfield has installed its eighth Shoei B2 folder.

The machine was supplied by Encore, Shoei's UK distributor.

"I suppose you would say that we are one of the best examples of 'if it isn't broke, don't change it'.

We've stayed loyal to Shoei for many years, just trading out the old machines and replacing them with the latest technology," said managing director, Lee Gardiner.

A specialist in the highly competitive short run, magazine market, the company produces just over one hundred title a months on a 24-hour shift, six days a week, using three fold sizes A4, B4 and a bastard size between the two.

"We've had to streamline our equipment to give us the fastest production throughput.

It doesnût make commercial sense to spend fifteen minutes every hour loading a folder, when we can eliminate all the manual handling.

Jobs come off the Heidelberg presses onto pallets, which are loaded straight on the Shoei.

We monitor the performance of all our folders through our MIS system and the new folders and those with pallet feeders give us quite a significant improvement in productivity.

When we buy a new piece of equipment, we also look at the supplier's response time for break down support," commented Gardiner.

He said that his company has known Mike Biggs (the managing director of Encore Machinery) for many years and it has full confidence in his company's service support.

That was put to the test when The Magazine Printing Company had a series of power failures, which damaged the machine.

"I called him in the evening and he was able to send an engineer first thing on Saturday morning who sorted the problem, so that we didn't lose a weekend's work," added Gardiner.

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